0:00

Marshall here. Welcome back to The

0:02

Realignment. Today's

0:08

episode is all about the US Navy

0:10

and its past, present, and future challenges,

0:13

especially through the lens of the current

0:15

conflict in the Middle East, with the

0:17

Navy serving as the main means of

0:19

reprisal against Houthi rebels disrupting global shipping.

0:21

And then also, of course, a lot

0:24

of focus on the possible

0:26

conflict in the Indo-Pacific, specifically

0:28

relating to Taiwan, United States,

0:31

and China. My guest today is Dr.

0:34

Jerry Hendricks. Jerry is a retired Navy

0:36

captain, and he's done a lot of

0:38

really impressive and really relevant writing on the

0:40

future of the US Navy and its current

0:43

challenges. He's also written about another subject due

0:45

to my heart, the arsenal of democracy, and

0:47

what needs to be done to repair the

0:49

United States' industrial base. Hope you all enjoyed

0:52

this conversation, and because Jerry's written so much,

0:54

I've included a bunch of really great links

0:56

that folks would check out below in the

0:59

show notes. I hope you enjoy this conversation,

1:01

and a huge thank you to the Foundation

1:03

for Recognization for the work of this podcast.

1:09

Jerry Hendricks, welcome to The Realignment.

1:12

It's a great pleasure to be here, and I'm looking

1:14

forward to this conversation. Yeah,

1:16

I'm really looking forward to chatting with

1:19

you. You're very prolific, so I have

1:21

a bunch of links to your writings

1:23

and recent speeches you've given in the

1:25

show notes. I want to just start here in this

1:28

broad conversation about the Navy by defining

1:30

the moment. You wrote a great and

1:32

delivered a great speech titled

1:34

A Period of Consequences. This is

1:36

back in 2022, but

1:38

the whole point of a period is I think this all will

1:41

still apply to 2024. How about you just start

1:44

by introducing how you

1:46

define the current moment the

1:48

United States finds itself in? Well,

1:50

thank you. That's a great question, and I

1:53

appreciate the fact you read that speech. I

1:55

was invited to give a speech at the

1:57

Metropolitan Club in Washington, DC in November of

1:59

2020. as part of

2:01

their, it was close to

2:03

the Navy's birthday. But I

2:05

drew that speech from a speech that

2:08

Winston Churchill gave before the Parliament in

2:11

the years leading up to World War II, in which he

2:14

made the point that we are no longer

2:16

in sort of a period in which we

2:18

were free to make decisions. But in fact,

2:20

we were in a period where we would

2:23

have to deal with the consequences of past

2:25

decisions. And we're very much in

2:27

one of those moments today, I believe

2:29

that we're in a period of consequences,

2:32

mostly because despite that a number of

2:34

voices that have been out there, I

2:37

knew I know, for instance, that Andrew

2:39

W. Marshall, the legendary director

2:41

of the Office of Net Assessment was

2:43

talking about a rising China as early

2:45

as the mid 1990s.

2:48

And in fact, there were serious voices

2:50

talking about a vervanchist Russia

2:52

in the early 2000s during the

2:55

George W. Bush administration, where we

2:57

began to see these clear indications

2:59

going. But we continue

3:01

to be somewhat strategically distracted

3:04

with the two land wars in Iraq

3:06

and Afghanistan. And certainly the events of

3:08

9-11 were serious, and

3:12

we had to take those seriously and the threat

3:14

of terrorism. But the fact that

3:16

we sort of took our eye off the

3:18

ball from a geostrategic standpoint, to

3:20

focus sort of very intently on

3:23

these two land wars, and

3:25

sort of lost sight of

3:27

the broader geostrategic competition that was

3:30

developing, specifically the rise of China.

3:33

And also the types of investments that

3:35

China was making, moving

3:37

beyond a first island

3:40

chain Navy, a coastal patrol Navy towards

3:42

a blue water Navy, or what Russia

3:44

was doing, moving towards a

3:46

sort of a deep investment in

3:49

advanced submarine technologies that would

3:51

allow it to potentially dominate

3:53

the Atlantic basin, and

3:55

thus severing the ties between North

3:58

America and the European ally. treaty

4:00

allies. So we sort of missed

4:02

all that. And so today we

4:05

have arrived at this period of

4:07

consequences where China is ramping up.

4:09

The pressure is definitely on Taiwan.

4:12

And in fact, I believe that

4:14

we're inside the event horizon of

4:16

a significant event, geostrategic

4:19

event, where China will feel that

4:21

its moment is now to

4:24

make a move against Taiwan to recover

4:26

their loss province, which of course was

4:28

never a province of China. They've

4:31

taken Hong Kong, they've

4:34

subdued Tibet. This is the next

4:36

step. Xi Jinping has bet his

4:38

entire legacy on this. And

4:41

I think that as they look around the

4:43

world at the level of distraction and general

4:45

weakness of the US position in the world,

4:47

specifically if we look at current events, which

4:50

I'm sure we'll get more into in

4:52

the Red Sea, the Strait of El Bab

4:54

Mandel, what's going on with

4:56

Suez, that everyone sort of understands that

4:58

the United States is at a period

5:00

of significant strategic weakness right now. So

5:03

I think that we're dealing with this

5:05

period of consequences and we may be

5:08

facing a significant wartime threat. Obviously

5:10

things are going sideways in the Middle East.

5:14

Europe with Ukraine is a greatly

5:16

challenged and troubled place. And I

5:18

believe that the world understands this

5:20

and there'll be a move in

5:22

the Asia Pacific region also within

5:24

the near future. So

5:26

again, we're entering a period

5:28

of consequences. And

5:31

I read your 2020 book,

5:33

which is to provide and maintain a Navy.

5:35

And you're really focused there on the size

5:37

of the Navy, the overall strength

5:40

of the Navy. But in your recent writing, you've pointed

5:42

out that 2020 work you were doing is

5:45

where we can sort of the Navy of 2040 and 2050. We'll

5:47

get into that. But I think the key

5:50

thing about a period of consequences is what

5:52

we should be really focusing on, especially in

5:54

this conversation is What does this all

5:56

mean for the Navy of 2024? Because if we have 30... Years

6:00

all sorts of things to be done and thirty

6:02

years very unfair me. What can be done in

6:04

the period of. Five. Six or

6:06

even weeks if we're talking. or twenty Twenty

6:08

Four being part of the Event Horizon smuggling

6:10

for Do swipe what Twenty Twenty Four means

6:13

for them unable prospective. Well.

6:15

You know we got the first inkling

6:17

of this. I'm in a public way

6:19

when Apple fill Davidson, then the outgoing.

6:22

Commander. Of the Indo Pacific

6:25

Command, A gave his sort

6:27

of valedictory testimony from the

6:29

Congress. About two and a half years

6:31

ago. And. Davidson talked about

6:33

this window. Ah, Tao

6:35

of other China could move any sort

6:37

of open the window in Twenty Twenty

6:40

Four, and he says that any time

6:42

I think it's up through Twenty Twenty

6:44

Seven that there was a high probability

6:47

of China taking action just based upon

6:49

a correlational forces of their relative readiness,

6:51

the strength of their economy are relative

6:54

lack of rain, or the fact that

6:56

they're navy was on the rise. I

6:58

mean, China's People's Liberation Army Navy today?

7:00

Is it about three hundred seventy five

7:03

ships we're in? About. Two Hundred

7:05

and Ninety one ships. They

7:07

are building a new surface

7:09

combatants every six weeks. Ah,

7:11

We are building on

7:14

average only. About six

7:16

surface combatants a year right

7:18

now have to our Libor

7:20

class destroyers. Of too

7:22

fast attack submarines. Actually, it's only

7:24

about one point Three, We've had

7:26

really serious industrial challenges and so

7:28

very much. The all trends are

7:31

in China's favor during this sort

7:33

of window a time, but we

7:35

all recognize his. well that that

7:37

doesn't continue forever. there was

7:39

so one scholar pointed out that

7:41

china needed to become great before

7:44

it became old because of though

7:46

the implications of the one child

7:49

policy china will face of the

7:51

significant demographic challenge as that one

7:53

child will be supporting to aging

7:56

parents and for aging grandparents and

7:58

so they're so stability

8:00

structure is going to be upside down

8:02

in inverted pyramid. That window

8:05

begins to open for them in about

8:07

2029, really accelerates after

8:09

2032 when the full impact of one child

8:11

policy comes to bear on them at home.

8:13

And so whatever China is going to do,

8:15

it needs to do now. So one

8:18

of the things that

8:20

I talked about, you know, and you're right, you

8:22

know, for years, I wrote about the need for

8:24

a larger Navy. And then I went down one

8:26

layer and I said, well, in that

8:28

Navy, we need this number of forgets, this

8:30

number of carriers, this number of destroyers, this

8:32

number of submarines. But what I

8:34

began to realize is none of

8:37

that really mattered because none of that was going

8:39

to manifest inside the threat window, this

8:41

Davidson window that we're seeing.

8:44

And so what can we do

8:46

now? What happens in inside this

8:48

window? And so I began

8:51

to write and focus on the industrial

8:53

base to figure out

8:55

like how if a ship or

8:57

a submarine gets damaged in war,

9:00

where is the maintenance going

9:02

to occur for that platform? Given the

9:05

fact that so much of our fleet

9:07

right now is in disrepair, for instance,

9:09

some 40% of the fast attack

9:12

submarines in the United States Navy right now

9:14

cannot get underway by the Navy's

9:16

own public admission, because they've lost

9:18

their dive certifications because they're in

9:20

arrears on required maintenance. And believing

9:22

if there's anybody in the Navy

9:24

that takes maintenance seriously, it's the

9:26

nuclear powered submarine force trained by

9:28

Hyman Rick over over 50 years

9:30

to make sure that no boat

9:32

submerges that's in an unsafe condition.

9:35

And so here we have over a third

9:37

of the submarine forces sidelined. We

9:40

have significant material challenges with our

9:42

surface force, our Ticonderoga class cruisers

9:45

are all 30 to 37 years

9:47

old and they're retiring. Our Burke

9:49

class destroyers, which are really some of the

9:51

great destroyers in the world today, but they're

9:54

rapidly aging as well. You know, DDG 51,

9:56

the first Arleigh Burke was

9:58

commissioned in 1991. when

10:00

I was a lieutenant junior grade and I've been

10:02

retired for the Navy for almost 10 years now.

10:05

So we're having real significant

10:07

challenges and and we haven't

10:10

even commissioned our first constellation class frigate, our

10:12

next class to ship into the Navy. We're

10:14

behind on that right now by nearly a

10:17

year according to the Navy. So

10:19

we're facing significant challenges in this

10:22

near-term window. I'm taking

10:24

notes here because we're gonna be jumping all over

10:26

the place but I'll try to really signpost as

10:28

well. So something I think would be useful for

10:30

folks. When you're describing

10:32

this these sets of challenges,

10:35

what are the challenges that are money

10:39

and will problems versus

10:41

no this is a structural impediment

10:43

no matter how many acts

10:47

of legislation or throwing

10:49

of money at something cannot be adjudicated.

10:51

Like what's the difference between those two

10:53

categories in this case? So

10:55

we do have let's

10:58

just call them ephemeral challenges. So

11:01

you know it's been a long time since

11:03

we fought a naval war. Now I think

11:05

a lot of people today would say hey

11:07

USS Kearney and all these ships that are

11:09

in the Red Sea shooting down Houthi missiles

11:11

right now they they are in a combat

11:13

situation and that is true. They

11:15

are in a defensive war situation where

11:18

we have invested in this technology of

11:20

shooting down cruise missiles and ballistic missiles

11:22

for the better part of 30 years.

11:26

But we have not gone mono-e-mono

11:28

blue water Navy against blue water

11:30

naval Navy in a naval war

11:32

setting since the end

11:34

of World War II. We had a couple

11:36

minor skirmishes during the Vietnam War but

11:39

certainly not anything where we had cruisers

11:41

on cruisers destroyers on destroyers sort of

11:44

in a in a slugfest. So

11:47

we have a reputation of being a

11:50

very good very professional Navy and

11:52

and I think that reputation is good but it

11:54

hasn't been tested In nearly 70

11:56

years. So There's a combat credibility issue

11:59

in Ephemeral Issues. There there's also

12:01

an issue of national will. So.

12:03

Right now based upon what we've

12:05

seen over the will say the

12:07

last three years. You

12:10

know first with the withdrawal from a

12:12

couple. Ah, In the way that

12:14

was handled, which was kind of a a debacle.

12:17

Ah, to the ramp up to

12:19

Russia's invasion of Ukraine or which

12:21

I think that will be fumbled.

12:23

The ramp up did not take

12:25

the Russian threat really seriously. We've

12:27

done extremely well and I say

12:29

the I give the administration of

12:31

your Good Grades for it's response

12:34

in unifying a Europe. And

12:36

the United States in our response and

12:38

giving aid of Ukrainians as they defend

12:40

themselves. I think that that's rather positive

12:42

with the fact is as potent felt

12:44

that he could go into Ukraine because

12:46

he perceived that we were weak and

12:48

that we would not respond immediately at

12:51

that time. That's a very much the

12:53

situation that we're also seeing right now

12:55

with every day that we don't push

12:57

back. Not against the Who sees the

12:59

who's his arm, the proxy. Iran.

13:02

Is the bad actor in the Middle

13:04

East right now that's are supporting Hamas

13:07

in Gaza, arm Hezbollah in Southern Lebanon

13:09

and now the who these in Yemen.

13:11

Iran is the malefactor here and we

13:13

are not hitting Iran where it hurts

13:16

and so every day that goes by

13:18

that we don't really take it to

13:20

them and we we just lost the

13:23

at the time of bert we're We're

13:25

talking about this. We lost three American

13:27

servicemen and we had over thirty injured.

13:30

Or in Jordan are due to

13:32

an Iranian attacks on and and

13:34

we have that again in in

13:36

this conversation we haven't responded yet

13:38

and capital every deck quick question

13:40

because the speak to. Your.

13:42

Writing though, Part.

13:44

Of the reason we haven't responded as

13:46

a New York about this very alkaline

13:48

your pointing out as a result of

13:50

these consequences as result of bike bad

13:52

investment in and policy decisions in the

13:54

nineties and to thousands. We.

13:56

Have lost lot of options and seems to me that

13:58

we do not have the. of backstopping

14:02

Eastern Europe, prepping

14:04

for the Indo-Pacific, and also

14:06

potentially escalating the Middle East. So what's your

14:08

result? Having written the point about tough choices,

14:11

it seems that one of the tough choices

14:13

we're making is we're not escalating against Iran.

14:15

I'm curious what you think about that. I

14:18

think that's a good point, but there's also a part

14:20

of the argument that I made in

14:22

to provide and maintain a Navy as well

14:24

as in the Atlantic essay that

14:27

we need to understand that the

14:29

Navy is best suited in its

14:32

proper context. So this is

14:34

an argument, by the way, that my friend

14:36

Elbridge Colby has made with

14:38

his strategy of denial argument that he's been

14:40

talking about. Elbridge makes

14:43

a comment that we can't be everywhere

14:45

and we have to prioritize. Well, my

14:47

point is, well, the Army's

14:49

natural place would be in Europe. If

14:53

the Army was there, if the Army was

14:55

on the ground in the way it was

14:57

in the past when I was a young

14:59

man, we had a couple divisions on the

15:01

ground in Europe that were forward, permanently based

15:03

in Europe. If the Army

15:05

had remained in Europe, I'm not sure that Putin

15:08

would have made the movements he made,

15:10

but the fact that we have to

15:12

move the Army from the United States

15:14

to Europe now means that we have

15:16

to go across that Atlantic divide, and

15:19

Putin has an answer for that with

15:21

his new Severn Institute class SSGN submarines.

15:24

And so there's significant challenge there.

15:26

We've badly positioned ourselves. The

15:29

U.S. Navy right now should be concentrated and

15:31

focused on the Asia Pacific threat. That's our

15:33

natural home, the big blue

15:35

ocean out there where we can take on

15:37

those threats where we have the maximum amount

15:39

of flexibility. The Middle East right now, for

15:41

everyone who said, well, we needed to get

15:44

out of Iraq and come home, when

15:46

you leave someplace, you create a power vacuum. And

15:50

the fact is, is we left, but then we said, well, I

15:52

still have interest there, so I'm going to put Special

15:55

forces or other types of irregular forces,

15:57

be it in Iraq or Jordan. Places

16:00

be com are sensitive, pressure points are

16:02

and in many ways hostages on to

16:04

the local region. Something that Iran has

16:06

known and has been trying to to

16:08

hit the because they feel that they

16:10

can give a Us a Bay Route

16:12

barracks like moment. If they can take

16:14

out a number of Americans that maybe

16:17

we would pull out in much the

16:19

same ways. We pulled the Marines out

16:21

of Lebanon after that Nineteen Eighty Three

16:23

bombing during the Reagan Menstruation. Sorry one.

16:25

There's got a great sense of history

16:27

and they're trying to play to what

16:29

they believe. Is their historic strengths are

16:31

historic weaknesses and our historic weakness of

16:33

has been sort of a lack of

16:36

a long term focus arm and a

16:38

lack of a long term national will.

16:40

Americans tend to be very quick to

16:42

anger. We have this Jacksonian impulse that

16:44

if you're pocus too hard we're gonna

16:47

come back and hit. yep, pretty hard

16:49

at that moment. But we also tend

16:51

to lose focus and about five years

16:53

arm on the outside and we all

16:55

wanna sort of retreat here to North

16:57

American. Come home. Every one else

17:00

has kind of figure that out and

17:02

they figure that they can outlast us in.

17:04

In the end, they can. Now we'll sort

17:06

of grinders down right now. the area

17:08

focus to me The things I'm most worried

17:11

about Because Or Taiwan is not only a

17:13

capitalist democracy and and a large one

17:15

at that, it's It's one of the world's

17:17

leading suppliers of the semiconductors. And.

17:19

It's a vital part of the western

17:22

economy. And. So I think we have

17:24

to have a focus. They're both from a

17:26

moral reason as well as an economic reasons.

17:28

So A So I think that's where we

17:30

need to be shifting the focus over time.

17:33

I. Think that was a great run down

17:35

of his with three different Cedars we're

17:37

talking about here. So then what are

17:39

tough choices? The. in a twenty

17:41

twenty four contact for gonna have to make

17:44

as he's like a tough choice though it's

17:46

baked in his roberts not going to for

17:48

deploy or divisions the us already europe on

17:50

bobby examples of tough choices you see as

17:52

many to make wealthy yet here we are

17:55

in twenty twenty four ah right now so

17:57

in many ways we or gotten past the

17:59

point it If you believe, as

18:01

I believe, that something may happen

18:03

this summer or early fall with

18:05

regard to Taiwan, we should have been husbanding our

18:08

forces, increasing our readiness,

18:11

maximizing production of major units of

18:13

ordnance, jazz, some, T-LAM, the types

18:15

of things that we would need

18:17

to stand on, stand in to

18:19

that type of an environment. And

18:22

we haven't done that. Right now, the

18:24

Gerald R. Ford's just come home after having

18:27

been extended on deployment twice, so

18:29

she's burned up eight months of readiness. It's going

18:31

to take her a while to get her ready

18:33

again. And that's the aircraft carrier, correct? Yeah, aircraft

18:36

carrier. The aircraft carrier Dwight Eisenhower, as

18:38

well as the John C. Stennis and the

18:40

Theodore Roosevelt are out. The Reagan was briefly

18:42

out. Well, that accounts right there. That's

18:45

five of the 11 American aircraft carriers. So

18:47

we've been burning up their readiness. They're not

18:49

always ready 100 percent. They have to come

18:51

in. Their air wings have to be trained.

18:53

The carriers have to be loaded. There has

18:55

to be material maintenance done on that. As

18:58

I already mentioned, some of

19:00

our Ticonderoga-class cruisers are being retired. This year,

19:02

I think we're going to retire four of

19:04

them in 2024. So

19:06

at this very moment when we're

19:08

coming into this sort of window of

19:10

danger, we're still

19:13

seeing a decline in our material

19:15

readiness of our force. We

19:18

should be right now calling the fleet

19:20

home, getting them maintained, getting them ready

19:22

to surge this year in response to

19:24

crisis. And in

19:26

fact, we're not. Again, the

19:28

submarine force, which we deem as

19:31

being absolutely crucial in a response

19:33

to a Chinese threat

19:35

against Taiwan, that submarine force, we're

19:37

not seeing significant increases in its maintenance.

19:40

We are about two dry

19:42

docks behind in the capacity we require

19:44

to maintain our submarine force, and we

19:46

can't make that up in the short

19:48

term. So those are the

19:50

places where I would like to see the Congress and the

19:52

administration spend a lot of time and a lot of money.

19:55

He is on submarine maintenance

19:57

and surface ship maintenance, as well as production

19:59

of ordnance. But we're

20:01

not. In fact, we've managed to get ourselves

20:04

bound up in a discussion about

20:06

the southern border that is

20:08

tied to aid to Ukraine

20:11

and Israel and Taiwan.

20:14

And we're sort of getting wrapped up

20:16

in the southern border issue, which I

20:18

recognize as being important with fentanyl

20:20

and everything coming across it, etc. But

20:23

we've tied everything together in a bundle, and we've

20:25

ended up sort of hobbling

20:27

ourselves in moving forward on the geostrategic

20:29

interests of the nation. So

20:32

I guess the real question here is I'd love for you

20:34

to actually explain – because you actually read about this in

20:36

your Atlantic piece – that the Navy,

20:39

out of all of the armed services,

20:41

all of these space forces in its

20:43

own unique category here, is pretty opaque

20:45

to folks. So when we're throwing around

20:47

frigates and corvettes and destroyers and 291

20:50

ships, could you actually just explain

20:53

how the Navy works for my –

20:56

what are the ship types in those 291 ships? I

20:59

know there are 11 aircraft carriers. That's

21:01

a mandated number that we maintain. What

21:03

do these terms we're throwing around mean?

21:06

Well, it's so – the navies are

21:08

comprised of different vessels that are

21:10

there to do different missions. So

21:14

since the Battle of Midway in

21:17

June of 1942, the large

21:21

aircraft carrier has been the centerpiece

21:23

of the American Navy. They have

21:25

the ability to project power and

21:27

establish sea control from the

21:29

deck of an aircraft carrier through the

21:31

use of its air wing to interdict

21:33

other ships, to sink

21:36

them, to damage them, to force them to turn

21:38

around and go home. That's been

21:40

at the center of the way that

21:42

our Navy operates. After

21:44

World War II, we created an entire

21:46

new class of carrier called the Super

21:48

Carrier, first the USS Forrestal,

21:51

and then her sister ships, and then the Enterprise,

21:53

and then the Nimitz classes. Those ships

21:55

were all Created to be

21:58

large enough to – Launch

22:00

very larger planes and then recover those

22:02

same airplanes on them. That's actually matter

22:04

of physics. Ah, the have enough space

22:06

to shoot one up to one hundred twenty miles an

22:08

hour with a catapult than than taps it within are

22:11

kept her with the rest eager. To.

22:13

Project Power Over Land. We wanted

22:15

to attack the Soviet Union. Deep.

22:18

Into the Soviet Union from aircraft carrier should

22:20

cease we built a whole classic years to

22:22

do that. Awesome powers. You are

22:24

quick to make the some kind of felt

22:26

so for example if you think I was

22:29

a modern aircraft carrier thinking of like as

22:31

a teen hornets on but I have from

22:33

you're reading you know you're talking about like

22:35

a three What I do you could you

22:38

explain what? So when you were saying strike

22:40

ranges among read explain the significance of that's

22:42

different scene back then and today. I

22:45

love other great question him and you've

22:47

gotten into my wheelhouse here because we

22:49

don't have long range penetrating strike on

22:51

the aircraft carrier today. Or

22:53

when we built the scariest. We. Built

22:56

the aircraft carrier other those and

22:58

forestall to host the a three

23:00

Sky Warrior. Which. Was a very

23:02

large eighty thousand pound bomber that flew

23:04

from the aircraft your your deck. The

23:06

could carry a nuclear weapon. He could

23:09

fly fifteen hundred nautical miles exactly be

23:11

extended to two thousand nautical miles to

23:13

the use of tanker aircraft to fuel.

23:16

And. Drop that weapon and returned to the

23:18

aircraft carrier. So you had a strike

23:20

range of some fifteen hundred nautical miles.

23:22

He take off off the shore you

23:24

could go deep into the Soviet Union.

23:26

We complimented the A Three Sky Warrior.

23:29

With. Long range of fighters they

23:31

could escorted in. We created middle

23:33

range of our light attack. not

23:35

light attack, but medium attack bombers

23:38

like the A Six intruder. A

23:40

If you've ever seen the movie

23:42

fly To the Intruder, read that

23:44

novel. That was the thing that

23:46

could go a thousand miles, carry

23:48

eighteen thousand pounds of ordinance that

23:51

got extensive use in the Vietnam,

23:53

Laos, Cambodia during those campaigns, work,

23:55

and fly long distances. Had a

23:57

for aircraft of you know. Any.

24:00

The whole carrier was set up with

24:02

the idea of of long range penetrating

24:04

attack. Then after the Cold War. Of

24:07

it came time to retire those airplanes. they

24:09

just sort of use up their wing life.

24:12

The design again old and antiquated. We tried

24:14

to integrate a new replacement aircraft for the

24:16

A three and the A Six. Who was

24:18

gonna be the A twelve? Arm.

24:21

And but the a twelve sort of

24:23

failed in conception because was lot of

24:25

problems with the design. It was gonna

24:27

be a very stealthy design. We called

24:29

it the flying to read or chip

24:31

because was like a big triangle ah

24:33

that they would find korea lot of

24:35

ordinance and it that guy cancelled during

24:37

the Bush administration that's the H Bush

24:39

administration. I was going to ask for

24:41

a second depth so that got cancelled

24:43

and what we did was we moved

24:45

away from long range strike that we

24:47

went to what we call light attack.

24:49

So the F eighteen Hornet. That we

24:51

fly from the decks. Today was

24:53

a replacement for the A for

24:55

Sky Warrior and the And and

24:57

the The Airport or Phantom The

25:00

A for Phantom. And so it

25:02

was a short range light attack

25:04

airplane. So we'd design the Hornets

25:06

to replace those two planes. So

25:08

when you're eighty three, I'm retired

25:10

and then you're A Six retired.

25:12

And then you're F Fourteen, Tomcat,

25:15

the Famous Top Gun, or from

25:17

the original target. Nineteen Eighty Six

25:19

When I was young, Ah,

25:21

When that all retired, we lost all the

25:23

range off the flight deck. We went from

25:25

about a thousand nautical mile range for an

25:28

air wing down to about five hundred nautical

25:30

mile range and we also cut the amount

25:32

of ordinance we could carry. So.

25:34

Today's Carrier Air Wing. The really operational

25:36

part of your peers are great but

25:38

if you don't have the right airplanes

25:40

on i'm be carrier can become irrelevant

25:43

and really that's were wrong. The brink

25:45

of today that when China has created

25:47

a d of twenty one missile. That

25:50

can target aircraft carriers are

25:52

thousand miles out yet see.

25:54

A If you don't have an air wing that can

25:56

go greater than a thousand nautical miles than you can

25:58

never touch, I'm It's like. It's like going

26:01

up against Muhammad Ali. Ah,

26:03

who had and tremendously long

26:05

a wingspan. Ah, With his punching

26:07

range but you've only got half of

26:09

his punching rings. Should you know you're

26:11

going to get hit by Ali when

26:13

you try this stuff the and to

26:15

get no com contact with the body

26:17

So this is a real problem for

26:20

us. Today We need an increase focus

26:22

on the aircraft carrier on it's air

26:24

wing so we can increase that range,

26:26

make the carrier relevant in the fight

26:28

that we're facing in these modern anti

26:30

axis or denial or environments. That's what

26:32

we call that. What China's built with

26:34

their bow anti ship ballistic missile. And

26:36

they're anti ship cruise missiles and their new fighters

26:38

in their new bombers. They're trying to push us

26:41

off their short. So. Again to

26:43

come back to your your original question.

26:45

The aircraft carriers the centerpiece but the

26:47

air wing is the a central crucial

26:50

element. Understand whether that terrier is going

26:52

to be are relevant in the modern

26:54

fight. But that. Carrier

26:56

because it's so important to

26:58

us Again, the centerpiece needed

27:00

to be defended. So.

27:02

We built cruisers, Ticonderoga,

27:05

Class Cruisers that are equipped with the

27:07

Aegis Ah March Seven weapon system. This

27:09

is our spy radar system that can

27:11

see hundreds of miles and tracks. Hundreds.

27:14

Of targets and then ah allocate weapons

27:16

to them to help defend the aircraft

27:19

your if anyone's gonna come out and

27:21

attack aircraft carrier whether it's a ballistic

27:23

missile or a cruise missile or an

27:26

airplane the spy one radars associated with

27:28

the Ticonderoga claspers are. We tried shoot

27:30

it Down so Cruiser was there for

27:32

air defense. Then. We created the

27:35

Burt class Destroyers. The. Burke was

27:37

sort of the ubiquitous utility infielder.

27:39

It. Could do air defense. It could

27:41

do anti surface warfare to take on

27:44

others navy ships. The also do anti

27:46

submarine warfare because it have tremendous bell

27:48

man at sonar and could go out

27:50

there. Can ping underwater to track submarines

27:53

and they could attack those using it's

27:55

helicopters are on board torpedoes. And

27:57

then we had frigates in the past

27:59

which really focused the on convoy escort

28:01

to escort our forces to and from

28:03

Europe or to our allies in in

28:05

Europe but it would also those are

28:08

frigates would also do anti submarine warfare.

28:10

We had a layer defense around the

28:12

carrier. To. Enable the carrier

28:14

to project power. Overland. And

28:16

today we we've I have what we call

28:18

the Rise of the Antis. Are

28:20

we have a lot of anti surface, anti

28:23

air, anti ballistic missile, anti submarine. We have

28:25

all the defensive place but we lack the

28:27

critical all sense of punching arm in the

28:30

navy and that's a real challenge that I

28:32

think that we have to overcome. It's an

28:34

imbalance in our force of we've allowed to

28:36

happen over the last thirty years since the

28:39

end of the Cold War. And.

28:41

Crack me. so it's the ask Thirty

28:43

Five See, that's what The Navy? Yes

28:46

so that I'm late as what I'd

28:48

where does where does that pop fly

28:50

into your arm striking distance aspect. So

28:52

the F Thirty Five Charlie was going

28:54

to be part of the Joint Strike

28:57

Fighter, which was conceived in the mid

28:59

Nineteen Nineties In it was supposed to

29:01

become a replacement for things like the

29:03

A Six Intruder. It would be able

29:06

to do Joint Strike. Meaning.

29:08

Power Projects in hitting other things and

29:10

attacking things on the grounds as well

29:12

as being a fighter he was going

29:14

incorporate stealth technology and it to lower

29:17

his radar signature so it could be

29:19

more effective in says these advanced radar

29:21

environments. Are. But it was also

29:23

going to have a bunch of advanced

29:25

weaponry. What funny thing happens with the

29:27

development of all fighters these days is

29:29

we originally projected that we one of

29:31

the Joint Strike Fighter to be able

29:33

to reach out to about eight hundred

29:35

and nine hundred nautical miles. but as

29:37

we began to design it and the

29:39

course there's always compromises that come with

29:41

the design. We started to our eco

29:43

way at that range. So the Joint

29:45

Strike Fighter Bf Five Charlie that five

29:47

Mercurial Decks actually only has arranged to

29:49

slightly longer than the F eighteens Super

29:51

Hornet. The the Enough Super Hornet so

29:53

you can get about five hundred six hundred

29:56

nautical miles out of a joint strike fighter.

29:58

On. refueled you can only get about 500 miles

30:01

out of the F-18. So again, we're

30:03

limited on being able to bridge that

30:05

gap created by the Chinese with their

30:07

state and off weapons. And

30:10

it feels like the difficulty then is

30:12

that these, given

30:15

the lack of nautical range that you're

30:18

referring to, it seems like this is

30:20

all-premise on us having an environment where

30:22

we can have aerial refuelers available in

30:24

the first place. And it doesn't seem

30:26

like that, that's very much an environment

30:28

if it's, you know, Iraq War 2003,

30:30

that's the environment with the Houthis, that's

30:32

definitely not the environment in a Asia-Pacific

30:34

conflict. Yeah, we can say right

30:36

now just based upon the performance of our air

30:40

wings and our aircraft flying from the

30:42

Ford previously and now with the Eisenhower

30:44

and the Red Sea, is

30:47

that our aircraft carriers perform

30:49

exceptionally well in permissive

30:51

air environments. If you're not really facing

30:53

a threat and you can stand in

30:55

close and sortie generation, just the number

30:57

of airplanes I can launch per day

30:59

to kind of overwhelm the

31:02

land-based power that I'm up against, if you're

31:04

in a permissive environment where you're facing really

31:06

no significant threat, then those aircraft

31:08

carriers are great. And in fact, we dominate

31:10

the world, that's why we love our aircraft

31:12

carriers and why we have 11 of them.

31:15

However, if you're in

31:17

a non-permissive environment, if you are

31:19

in an anti-access air-to-night environment and

31:22

your most recent Gerald R.

31:24

Ford class supercarrier cost between

31:27

$13 and $15 billion to operate or to build, operate at $1.2 million per

31:34

day and has some

31:37

5,000 American sailors on

31:39

board, then you're going to be very

31:41

hesitant to risk that in a non-permissive

31:43

environment. So again, stepping back strategically, like,

31:46

you know, rule number one in war

31:48

is that that people die.

31:51

Rule number two in war is never build

31:53

an asset that you

31:55

cannot afford to lose. And

31:58

that's what we've done with the... Ford class is

32:00

we have created an asset. First of all, the

32:02

Ford costs almost two and a half times

32:06

the amount of money that we spent on the

32:08

previous Nimitz class aircraft carriers. The

32:11

average Nimitz came in between five

32:13

to $6 billion per copy. The

32:15

last couple cost a little bit more because

32:17

they were transitional carriers getting ready for the

32:20

forts we incorporated new technologies in them. But

32:22

the average Nimitz because we built 10 of

32:24

them, and it costs about five

32:27

to $6 billion. The Ford herself came

32:29

in at 12.9. And by the way, that's

32:32

not an accurate figure, because the Ford

32:34

was not complete. When she was delivered,

32:36

we use repair money to finish

32:39

the Ford. The Kennedy is looks like she's

32:41

going to come in again about the same

32:43

price greater than 13 billion. And

32:45

the enterprise will have a high price tag

32:47

as well. So we've created a

32:50

new class of supercarrier that really

32:52

can generate a lot of airplane sorties

32:54

per day. But the fact

32:56

is, if you look at the anti access

32:58

aerodynamic environment where you would expend the launch

33:00

planes in the morning, have them fly away,

33:02

be gone for long periods that day, because

33:05

they have to go great distances. sortie

33:07

generation is not your metric of success.

33:10

It's really because you're only going to launch about

33:12

60 sorties a day, not the 150 sorties that

33:15

you might in short

33:17

range, permissive environments. So

33:19

we sort of zigged in our carrier

33:21

investment when the world's zagged so far

33:23

as how the world invested to counter

33:25

our carriers. And we've kind of found

33:27

ourselves holding a gigantic bill in carrier

33:31

technology for what we've

33:33

invested in vice with the world's environment is

33:35

now demanding of us. Where

33:37

does the where do the

33:40

dynamics run the carrier fit into the

33:42

fact that, for example,

33:44

if there was a Taiwan conflict almost certainly

33:46

we're launching land based Air

33:49

Force fighters, bombers,

33:51

etc, from Japan, they

33:54

could maybe have the Marine Corps out in

33:56

the Asia Pacific, you have F 35 B's

33:58

vertical takeoff landing. Where does all of

34:00

that fit together? It's not as if our entire strategy

34:02

is we throw carriers into it, but oh no, we

34:04

can't get them far enough. Like where does, what is

34:07

the broad picture here? Well, so

34:09

that you're getting at the major

34:11

sort of, uh, alliance question of

34:13

the day, which is, you

34:15

know, I know that Japan has come out and

34:17

said that if China invades Taiwan, that Japan's in,

34:19

they, they have made the statement that they would

34:21

become involved in that. Uh,

34:23

the question is, um, what is the

34:25

secondary and tertiary effect of that? So

34:28

yes, we are planning on launching air force

34:31

aircraft that would come from a U

34:33

S basis in Japan, but

34:35

that would also almost immediately make

34:38

those basis targets. And those bases

34:40

all lie well under China's ballistic

34:42

missile threat envelope. So China

34:44

could immediately begin saturating those bases with

34:46

missiles to be able to interdict those

34:49

fighters, catch them on the ground, take

34:51

out our ordinance depose or our fuel

34:53

farms and tanks. Uh, and that

34:55

could happen very quickly. So there

34:57

is a basic question about whether Japan

35:00

will remain in the fight for long

35:02

after that we are looking at five

35:04

expeditionary basis that we're establishing in the

35:06

Philippines right now. And under the, the

35:10

administration, the new Marcos administration in

35:12

the Philippines, you know, we're making

35:14

significant investments there, but again, that's

35:16

five, um, major bases there. Uh,

35:18

we know where those are. And

35:20

so do the Chinese. Those all

35:22

also fall largely under China's

35:24

missile threat envelope. And then

35:26

we have the problem of our aircraft carriers, whether

35:29

they could be able to launch an air wing,

35:31

uh, and be able to come to aid of

35:33

Taiwan. The answer is probably not the carriers going

35:35

to have to come into that threat wing ring.

35:38

And at that point in time, they would be targeted and

35:40

we may have what we call a

35:42

mission kill, which is having a missile

35:44

hit the aircraft carrier, but not necessarily

35:46

sink it. But destroy a large amount

35:48

of its radars as communications device, the aircraft

35:50

that are still on deck. So

35:52

what are we down to then? Well, now

35:55

we're down to the air force and it's

35:57

long range strike potential. You know,

35:59

we've got fewer. than 20 B-2s.

36:01

We've got a lot of B-52s

36:03

that have some stand-in long-range attack

36:05

missiles that could be,

36:08

you know, fly up to the threat

36:10

ring and then launch against Chinese targets

36:12

inside of it. The B-21 has not

36:14

come along yet in

36:17

full capacity. They're just test flying it. So

36:19

in this next couple years, the B-21

36:21

isn't a factor. We are very limited in

36:23

what we can do. What

36:25

we can do is the

36:27

submarine force. So we still have the

36:29

four Ohio class SSGNs that have 150

36:32

Tomahawks each. I

36:35

can't tell you how many would be

36:38

at sea on any given day to

36:40

be available to be able to, you

36:42

know, strike against Chinese targets. And we

36:44

have our Virginia class, our Seawolf class,

36:47

and our Los Angeles class submarines that

36:49

have some Tomahawks and torpedoes on them

36:51

to be able to sink Chinese shipping,

36:54

our target Chinese land installations. Those will

36:56

probably be the most vital part of

36:58

our response to Taiwan is the submarine

37:00

force. The main question will be how

37:03

many of those we will have in position on

37:06

within the first seven days of

37:08

any campaign. A lot of

37:10

people, and I just let me make this

37:12

point here about the geography here. A

37:15

lot of people think, well, it's an ocean and we

37:17

can get there fairly quickly. You cannot

37:19

get from here to there quickly across

37:21

the Pacific Ocean. The Pacific Ocean is

37:23

vast. It's wide. It's deep. You

37:26

can fit the moon into

37:28

the Pacific Ocean without it touching

37:30

Asia and North America. That's

37:32

how broad that is. It takes us

37:34

on average about three weeks to

37:36

get across the Pacific Ocean. So if

37:39

China goes tomorrow, we're going to have to deal

37:41

with what's in theater for the next few days.

37:43

It's going to take us a couple of weeks

37:45

to surge things from Pearl Harbor or even the

37:48

West Coast of the United States to get to

37:50

that theater. So this is the

37:52

tyranny of distances. And

37:54

something I think would be helpful to understand

37:56

because in

37:59

non-experts, I do a lot

38:01

of work in the defense technology space

38:03

and everyone's very excited about drones and

38:05

this idea that we've over invested in

38:07

these massive platforms and the era of

38:09

the drone has just really obliterated a

38:12

lot of the opportunity they're making this akin

38:15

to a World War II battleship type situation.

38:17

But just I'd love for you to like push back on

38:19

me if this is incorrect. My push back to folks who

38:21

basically just sort of say, okay, we

38:24

need to just replace this all with

38:26

drones. Just neglects any of the geography

38:28

aspect. So it's like unclear to me like

38:30

how these drones are delivered in the first place. It's

38:33

unclear how force power projection works. And

38:36

then once again, I'm just kind of responding to general discourse of having, but

38:38

I just have a deep thought for you to talk about how drone

38:41

unmanned warfare fit into this dynamic. Because basically every part

38:43

of our conversation now could have happened in the mid-1990s.

38:45

So let's take this to the 2020s then maybe. Well,

38:50

and you're right. We could have, we

38:52

were having these conversations about unmanned platforms

38:54

in the 1990s. We were

38:57

using unmanned platforms to

38:59

help guide fire

39:01

control from the battleships during

39:03

Desert Storm because we

39:06

were launching pioneers off the backs of

39:08

our Iowa class battleships and then using

39:10

them to spot for those

39:12

big battleship guns. So we were starting to

39:14

deal with drones then and we began to

39:16

really think about it. However, there's always been

39:18

a dynamic tension between the manned communities in

39:21

the Army, the Air Force, and

39:23

especially the Navy and the unmanned

39:26

communities because everyone has looked skeptically

39:28

at the unmanned communities because they

39:30

are a threat to manned missions,

39:32

meaning the missions that the manned

39:34

communities want to do as well

39:36

as the manned communities' budgets. And

39:39

so there's been a natural compression on

39:41

unmanned. Now drones, when we talk about

39:43

drones in terms of what we're seeing

39:45

in Ukraine right now where the drone

39:47

is really sort of a revolutionary,

39:50

revolutionizing war there,

39:53

understand those are all local drones. Those

39:55

are small helicopters that you and I could

39:57

go down and purchase at the hobby shop.

40:00

and then we put a hand grenade on

40:02

it, we hover over a tank and we

40:04

can drop it in the turret, and that's

40:06

what the Ukrainians are doing. Really great, amazing

40:08

stuff, using off-the-shelf type capabilities. But there's

40:10

no place in the Western Pacific

40:12

that you're gonna take that off-the-shelf

40:15

drone and launch it except from

40:17

Taiwan, or from Japan, or from

40:19

the Philippines. And if you're launching from the

40:22

Philippines, you're not gonna make it to Taiwan.

40:24

That range is just too great for most

40:26

of the drone technology that we're seeing and

40:28

operate in Ukraine. Where we

40:30

needed to be, and where we passed up on

40:33

a major opportunity, is we

40:35

need unmanned combat area

40:37

vehicles. So in the early

40:39

2000s, mid-20s, the

40:44

US Navy invested in what we

40:46

called UCASD, the Unmanned Combat Aerial

40:48

System Demonstrator, which was

40:50

the X-47B, built by Northrop Grumman,

40:53

which was an all-aspect stealth flying wing

40:55

that had the ability to carry about

40:57

2,000 pounds of ordnance,

40:59

1,500 nautical miles. We

41:02

flew that thing out to an aircraft

41:04

carrier. It landed by itself on the

41:06

aircraft carrier, using its own onboard

41:08

system. It landed so

41:11

accurately on the carrier that

41:13

we had to alter the software on that to

41:15

make it land in a different spot because it

41:17

was gouging the same piece of metal out of

41:19

the flight deck of the carrier. It was hitting

41:21

so precisely. Then it

41:23

took off from the carrier, it recovered from the carrier,

41:25

it flew up, it hit the tanker, it

41:28

refueled itself in the air

41:30

by itself using its own autonomous system. And

41:33

then we suddenly canceled those tests, only

41:35

about a third of the way through the test program because,

41:38

and I'm convinced that this is because we saw

41:40

that as a threat to the manned community. That

41:43

was where we could have been today, is to

41:45

have a long range, I'm talking 2,000 nautical miles,

41:49

all-aspect stealth platform, meaning that no one's

41:51

gonna be able to see it, it

41:53

would have been able to penetrate deep

41:56

into anti-access, air denial environments,

41:58

hit targets and return. and find

42:00

the carrier on the backside of it. But we

42:02

sort of threw up a flack around that, and we

42:04

did not go there. We also need

42:06

unmanned surface craft, and I would

42:09

use those alongside manned

42:11

surface craft, like the new frigate. If

42:13

I had unmanned sensor platforms that

42:15

were shooting out, you know, low

42:17

observable, semi-submersible, operating just

42:19

at the surface, below the surface,

42:21

with sensors on them to go

42:24

out and extend my sensor range,

42:27

and then even have unmanned platforms, again,

42:29

semi-submersible, that go out that have a

42:31

lot of ordnance on them, so that

42:33

I expand upon my ordnance magazine

42:37

depth, so that I'm using

42:39

these unmanned platforms to weave together a

42:41

picture of my environment in

42:43

a very distributed fashion, where I'm

42:45

aggregating that picture back on a

42:47

manned platform, perhaps outside the threat

42:49

range, then firing off a weapon

42:51

from a forward-positioned unmanned platform, and

42:53

sort of orchestrating this garage

42:56

band of unmanned platforms out

42:58

there, and bringing

43:00

it all together in an orchestrated fashion.

43:02

That's where we could be today, and

43:05

where I've been actually advocating that we

43:07

begin testing these concept of

43:09

operations to be able to bring all

43:11

these things together. Unmanned underwater,

43:14

again, sensor range,

43:17

to be able to extend my awareness, have

43:19

it dwell there, so that I don't have

43:21

to keep manned platforms in the area all

43:23

the time, but I'm there, I'm listening, I'm

43:25

building up that picture, I'm integrating that picture

43:28

over time, so that I know any change

43:30

is going on, but we

43:32

haven't made those investments, despite the fact

43:34

that we've had the technology in place, and

43:36

we've had the knowledge of what we

43:38

could be doing, we've chosen not to make

43:40

those investments. So for

43:42

these last two big questions, so I

43:45

literally host a podcast called The

43:47

Arsenal Democracy over at the Hudson Institute, so

43:49

this is my favorite topic, especially what you're

43:51

writing about in National Review. I

43:54

want you to help me understand, I

43:56

genuinely do not understand why, at

43:59

a narrative level, level, the Biden administration

44:01

isn't doing a better job within

44:03

the arsenal democracy category, especially given

44:05

the fact that President Biden is

44:08

making reference to the arsenal democracy,

44:10

but they're also clearly engaging in a foreign

44:12

policy. Ukraine, the Middle

44:14

East, Asia Pacific, that's going to

44:17

necessitate us basically

44:20

stepping up from where we are, from a replacement and

44:23

force projection perspective. The

44:25

metaphor is there. It's like, I did FDR's thing.

44:27

I did the CHIPS Act. I did the IRA.

44:30

Now I'm focused on the arsenal democracy. What

44:32

is happening? Because it's very frustrating to

44:34

read the pieces that you're writing when it seems such

44:36

an obvious political unifying

44:39

bipartisanship opportunity. I

44:41

agree. I thought that this was an

44:43

area, something if we went from the

44:45

CHIPS Act, something that Senator Schumer and

44:48

Senator Young, Democrat and Republican, brought together

44:50

to try and reshore

44:53

microchip fabs here

44:56

into the United States to shore

44:58

up our independence from overseas suppliers of

45:00

that. If we did something like

45:02

a CHIPS Act, where we

45:04

decided to reshore industrial capacity and

45:06

industrial production of shipbuilding back here

45:08

in the United States, right

45:11

now the largest shipbuilder in the world is

45:13

China. Then you've got South Korea. You've got

45:15

Japan. You've got shipbuilders in Europe. We're like

45:18

number 17 on the list. We're

45:20

way down there, and we really don't have

45:22

commercial shipbuilding. But there's other aspects of the

45:24

industrial base that we don't have. I really

45:27

thought that the Biden administration really missed a

45:29

major opportunity in its first year, year and

45:31

a half when it passed some of those

45:33

major spending bills, infrastructure investment

45:35

bills. And they put essentially all

45:37

of their chips into green energy,

45:40

alternative energy type investments. That seems

45:42

to be their political agenda, their

45:44

number one agenda is

45:46

investing in those types of

45:49

priorities. Perhaps that's because

45:51

that's a priority of their party. But

45:53

at the same time, Despite

45:55

being the party of the Industrial

45:57

Labor Union, This

46:00

the opportunity to appeal to that

46:02

specifically in the Middle West where

46:04

there's still a lot of industrial

46:06

manufacturing capacity in and around the

46:08

Great Lakes or along the Mississippi

46:10

in Ohio reverse where you can

46:12

still find that there is excess

46:14

capacity there for us to touch. So

46:16

today, when we're trying to ramp

46:18

up production of of these missiles

46:20

that we have been giving to

46:22

Ukraine, More that we're now

46:24

trying to ship aid to Israel over

46:27

trying to get our aid going to

46:29

Taiwan. We need excess capacity there, you

46:31

know? I wrote an essay and National

46:33

Review or about a month month and

46:35

a half ago where I talked about

46:37

the fact at the end of the

46:39

Cold War your we took our industrial

46:41

base for about one hundred and seven

46:43

major defense manufacturers and we consolidated down

46:45

to five, five major price. We.

46:47

Need to find a way of reversing that

46:50

process? And really expanding a

46:52

reinstating that industrial base so we

46:54

build resiliency and redundancy. You know,

46:56

we went through thirty years where

46:58

resiliency and redundancy or redundancy was

47:00

a bad word on our economy's

47:02

we need to become more lean.

47:04

We need become more efficient. We

47:06

need single source our suppliers. You

47:08

know in in wartime that just

47:10

doesn't work. You. Actually need Duel

47:12

Sources a supplier? you want to make

47:14

sure. That. If something goes

47:16

wrong, if there's an attack or a

47:18

terrorist attack against one mean provider but

47:20

crucial elements that you have another. You.

47:23

Know the Dwight Eisenhower? Actually,

47:25

Had a policy that he called the

47:27

dispersal policy. When we as a nation,

47:30

we're getting our mind around the of

47:32

the probability of a nuclear war. We.

47:34

Want to make sure that there was at

47:36

least two builders, if not three of everything

47:38

in the country. So. I made

47:40

it a policy to disperse the

47:42

industrial base across the nation. Or

47:45

when we built the first I see beyond the

47:47

Atlas missile which is built Los Angeles he said

47:49

for the second I Cbm which was gonna be

47:51

Titan. titan has to be built

47:54

east of the rockies and so sure enough

47:56

it was built on colorado springs are east

47:58

of the rockies because we wanted to make

48:00

sure that we always had two suppliers of every

48:02

major weapon system. I think

48:04

your answer gets to the frustration I'm feeling which

48:06

is that everything you just said, domestic

48:09

resiliency, pressures, you could

48:11

fit this within the political project, you could

48:13

say, hey, we lack a

48:16

resilient infrastructure system, hey,

48:18

we let the market take over the

48:20

semiconductor piece and now we're dependent on

48:22

vulnerable Taiwanese chips, when then Van Gogh

48:24

nixed in that logic into the defense

48:27

industrial base, it just seems that there

48:29

just isn't a coalition. There

48:32

just isn't a political coalition that would

48:35

take the Biden administration's explicit policy to its logical

48:37

conclusion. If you're going to be an isolationist and

48:39

say, look, we don't care about the Middle East,

48:41

we don't care about Europe, we don't care about

48:43

the Asian Pacific, you don't need to worry about

48:45

the arsenal of democracy as much. But if you

48:48

are going to say this is your thing, I

48:50

wish that they would take that policy to its

48:52

logical conclusion and focus on like

48:54

the SHIP's Act, which isn't an

48:56

actual act, but that idea you're speaking about

48:58

here, because there's a huge, I think there's

49:00

a huge political opportunity there that

49:02

wasn't taken. I agree.

49:04

And again, you know, I always

49:07

joke that I'm an Eisenhower Republican.

49:10

The other part of that means I'm a Republican, it will

49:12

raise your taxes. But my

49:14

point here is I want to

49:16

find the vital center, create

49:19

pragmatic solutions, find places where we

49:21

can have mutual agreement left, right

49:23

and center, and rebuild that

49:25

vital center in our national

49:27

dialogue, especially around national security,

49:29

which I think is a place that we, you know,

49:32

providing for the common defense should be something that we

49:34

can all agree upon. And so how

49:36

do we get there? I've

49:38

actually had positive response from

49:41

Republican and Democrat senators, Republican and Democrat

49:43

members of the House on the idea

49:45

of a SHIP's Act. So I'd love

49:47

to be able to take that move

49:49

forward. But you are absolutely correct. Until

49:51

the administration in the White House picks

49:53

up the gauntlet, we're not going to be able

49:56

to really move forward on Capitol Hill where there's

49:58

only so much that senators

50:00

or even senators working in a bipartisan

50:02

fashion can bring that to bear. And

50:04

right now, we just haven't seen that

50:06

attention from the White House on

50:09

the industrial base, specifically on the

50:11

industrial and manufacturing part of that

50:13

base. If we were talking

50:16

about coding and microchips, yeah, that's one

50:18

thing. But I'm talking about steel workers.

50:20

I'm talking about metal fabrication, electricians, welders.

50:23

That's an area where we need the attention of the

50:25

administration as well. So

50:27

last question here, in To Provide

50:29

and Maintain, you have this

50:31

really great, towards the

50:34

end of the book, discoursing on the difference

50:36

between a land power and a sea power.

50:38

And the key thing about World War Two

50:40

and then the challenges of the Cold War

50:42

is that the United States both had to,

50:44

slots was able to opt to be a

50:46

land power and a sea power at

50:49

once during the post Cold War era, before Great

50:51

Power Competition, we also were able to kind of

50:53

continue on that legacy. It seems

50:55

clear from reading your work, though, that we're increasingly

50:58

in a period where the United States has to

51:00

behave much more like a sea power. Talk about

51:02

what those terms mean, land versus sea and what

51:04

the implications are. So I will close out the

51:06

episode. It's a great question. Thank

51:09

you for allowing me to sort of close on that.

51:11

When we were founded as a nation, we

51:14

were very much founded as a sea

51:16

power. That's why the Constitution actually says to

51:18

provide and maintain a Navy while where when

51:20

we talk about the army, it was to

51:22

raise and support the army. So

51:25

the army was viewed as an episodic aspect

51:27

of the national life where the Navy was

51:29

a permanent aspect of life. That's because we

51:31

were 13 colonies on the Atlantic seaboard, really

51:34

looking at European markets, both to sell our

51:36

goods and then to buy finished goods from

51:38

them. So we're very much a sea power at that

51:40

time. As we started to move

51:42

across the continent, settling

51:45

the continent, you know, with our

51:47

settlers and bringing states into the Union,

51:51

we sort of became focused on the

51:53

land challenge of the continent. So we

51:55

became continentalist, very much like a

51:57

France or a Germany focused on the middle

51:59

territory. territory, what it takes to sort

52:01

of control this. Then when we reach the

52:03

other coast, it's really kind of interesting that

52:06

outfit there Mahan, the great

52:08

maritime strategist from the United States

52:10

does not emerge until the continent

52:12

is settled in the

52:14

late the early 1990s. And then

52:16

Mahan emerges as we began to look outward

52:19

again across the two oceans, now the Atlantic

52:21

and the Pacific, and thinking about global trade

52:23

and where we're going to go with these

52:25

finished goods are being created in the American

52:27

economy. And so we began in

52:30

the 20th century, because we

52:32

were large, vibrant, powerful, had the

52:34

world's largest economy and continue to

52:36

grow, we could afford to be

52:39

both a continental power, and

52:41

a sea power simultaneously. In fact,

52:43

we're really the only nation in

52:45

global history, who could be both. And

52:47

so we were essentially right

52:49

up until the end of the Cold

52:52

War. Because we had a large thriving

52:54

economy, we had technological change, we were

52:56

able to maintain strategic advantage. The

52:58

problem that we have is since the end of the

53:00

Cold War, one, we've allowed our military power both land

53:02

and sea to atrophy.

53:04

The second is that we've raised

53:08

seen rising imbalances in our

53:10

economy. So right now $34

53:12

trillion in debt, and

53:14

with rising interest rates, you know, the servicing on

53:16

that debts becomes a challenge, we can no longer

53:18

afford to be all things to all people. We've

53:21

seen this in our dialogue, where there's sort of

53:23

these neo isolationist voices that are beginning to rise

53:26

up, asking us to come

53:28

home and focus on challenges here at home that

53:30

we can no longer afford to be everywhere. And

53:32

perhaps we can't. But we also cannot

53:34

afford to turn our back on the world, we have 50

53:37

treaty allies, 49 of which

53:39

fly across oceans. And so my argument

53:41

is, is now is the time to

53:44

refocus on what is there in our

53:46

founding DNA, the sea power aspect of

53:48

our foreign policy? And do we take

53:50

a a decided, navalist maritime

53:52

approach to the world understanding that

53:54

our role in any future exchange

53:57

was to ensure the free flow

53:59

of goods and supplies to our

54:01

allies and partners as they fight their

54:03

wars, utilizing their own organic forces where

54:05

we provide them with naval and air

54:08

power support and perhaps the support of

54:10

our space force and our overhead intelligence

54:12

assets to provide them with awareness of

54:14

what's going on in their environment. But

54:17

that we dominate the commons of

54:19

the planet, the sea, air, and

54:21

space, and cyberspace, and we lend

54:23

our support to them on their

54:25

local actions from those

54:27

commons, whereas we ask them to take up

54:29

their own self-defense with their land forces. So

54:31

that's the navalist, sea power approach to the

54:33

world that I think that we can afford

54:36

to do and that we must do. Very

54:39

well said, Jerry. Thank you for joining me on The

54:41

Realignment. Lots of great links to all of your work,

54:43

our bill for folks in the show notes. Thanks for

54:45

joining me on the show. Thank

54:48

you. It's a pleasure to be here. Hope

54:50

you enjoyed this episode. If

54:54

you learned something like this sort

54:57

of mission or want to access

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55:11

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